Hildegard, the "Sybil of the Rhine," was a Benedictine nun and one of the most prolific and original women writers of the Middle Ages. Arranged thematically, this new edition of her work brings together selections from her visionary trilogy, her treatise on medicine and the natural world, and her songs and correspondence.



This unique volume includes a chronology of her life and times, bibliography, select discography, explanatory notes, glossary, and connecting commentary. It shows Hildegard as a wide-ranging thinker who touched on many themes that concern us today, including: the relationship between human beings and the natural world, mutuality between men and women, and the importance of a holistic approach to life.



For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Hildegard of Bingen was a German Benedictine abbess, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and extremely gifted polymath. Many Germans consider her to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.



Mark Atherton is an author and translator known for There and Back Again: JRR Tolkien and the Origins of the Hobbit, Complete Old English Beginning to Intermediate Course, and Selected Writing: Hildegard of Bingen.

Selected Writings - Hildegard of Bingen - Translated by Mark Atherton Introduction:

I. Life and Career

II. Hildegard in Her Time

III. Hildegard's Writings

Further Reading

Select Discography

Chronology

Translator's Note

Know the Ways

1. Letter to Bernard of Clairvaux

2. The Action of the Will (from Scivias)

3. Redemption (from Scivias)

4. Letter to Odo of Soissons

5. The Trinity (from Scivias)

6. Letter to Pope Eugenius III

Struggles for Independence

7. Songs for Saint Disibod

8. Letter to Hartwig of Bremen

9. Song for Saint Ursula

10. The Trials of the Soul (from Scivias)

11. Songs for Saint Rupert

12. The Departure of Richardis of Strade

13. The First Version of The Play of the Virtues (from Scivias)The Sibyl of the Rhine

14. Three Political Letters

15. Songs for the Dedication of a Church

16. Teachings on the Church (from Scivias)

17. Letter to Elisabeth of Schönau

18. Gertrud of Stahleck

19. Letter to the Abbess of Bamberg

In Praise of Creation

20. The Cosmic Egg (from Scivias)

21. The Cosmos (from Causes and Cures)

22. Gemstones (from Physica)

23. Songs from Symphonia

24. Two Christmas Homilies

Allegories of Justice and Love

25. The Iron Mountain (from Scivias)

26. The Man Looking East and South (from The Book of Life's Merits)

27. The Seven Vices and Virtues (from The Book of Life's Merits)

28. The Voice from Heaven (from The Book of Life's Merits)

29. The Unknown Language

30. Allegorical Letters

31. A Vision of Love (from The Book of Divine Works)

Hildegard's Life and Influence

32. Queries and Requests: Selected Letters to Hildegard

33. From The Life of Hildegard, Book 2, by Theoderich of Echternach

34. Gebeno of Eberbach: The Pentachronon

35. From the Canonization Protocol

Notes

Glossary